WASHINGTON – About 300 students from Wisconsin traveled to the nation's capital to participate Thursday in the annual March for Life to protest abortion on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling.

They came from Green Bay, La Crosse, Wausau and Neenah to march down the National Mall to the Supreme Court, whose ruling legalized abortion 42 years ago. The students then headed to Capitol Hill to meet with Badger State lawmakers.

"I thought it was time to stand up for something I believe in," said Abbey Bongiorno, 17, who attends Notre Dame Academy in Green Bay. "And I think that from the moment of conception, it's a human being, so this walk was really important to me to come to."

She and the others attended a reception with Reps. Sean Duffy, R-Wausau, Reid Ribble, R-Sherwood, and Glenn Grothman, R-Campbellsport, who told them to keep standing up for their beliefs.

"I'm glad you are here today because it's important to keep reminding the people in this building, this is a horrible thing," he said. "We are not going to stand for having America continue to do something that throughout human history was considered an abomination."

Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wausau, talks with 19-year-old Katherine Ross of Custer, Wis., who traveled to Washington to participate in the March for Life Thursday.(Photo: Donovan Slack/Gannett Washington Bureau)

The event came as the House of Representatives passed a bill that would make permanent the prohibition of federal funding for abortions. Currently the ban is renewed each year in attachments to funding measures. Grothman, Ribble and Duffy joined the other Republican members from Wisconsin in voting for the bill. Democrats from the state voted against the measure.

The legislation is unlikely to become law. The White House issued a veto threat before it even passed. President Barack Obama issued a statement vowing to do everything in his power to protect "a woman's freedom to make her own choices about her body and her health."

"The federal government should not be injecting itself into decisions best made between women, their families, and their doctors," he said.

Duffy, who organized the reception for Wisconsin students, urged them to get the word out about the march and its message through social media, because he predicted news media wouldn't cover it.

"I think what's pretty cool is that this pro-life movement really has become a youth movement, and what used to be a stuffy set of ideas has really become the norm," he said.

Ribble told the group he found it inspiring that so many young women attended because it has become a common perception that the anti-abortion movement does not include young women. And he praised the whole group for simply being engaged.

"We need every single one of you here in making a stand for life, or we will have a continual degradation of what we feel are the right and proper values to hold regarding this very, very important and critical issue," he said.

Wisconsin students who traveled to Washington to participate Thursday in the March for Life met with Badger State Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wausau.(Photo: Donovan Slack, Gannett Washington Bureau)

For 17-year-old Zechariah Kitzhaber of Marshfield, it was his fourth time traveling to Washington and participating in the march. The Columbus Catholic High School student said he feels it's important to add his voice to the movement.

The students' trips were organized by the Catholic dioceses of Green Bay and La Crosse, a scattering of independent Catholic churches, and Pro-Life Wisconsin.